DELIVERANCE! (Psalm 18)

There’s an old folk tale about some blind men trying to describe an elephant. One touched a stout leg and said it was like a tree. The one who touched the elephant’s side called it a strong wall. The one the elephant grabbed by its trunk was sure this mystery was a serpent. The one switched by the animal’s tail thought it was a rope.

Psalm 18 is a lot like that.  It is full of images of God as our rock-solid Protector and Sovereign as David reflects on God’s help in battles against Saul and national enemies. Much of it is also quoted in 2 Samuel 22.

When we’re going through difficult and discouraging times, it’s easy to think God has better things to do than look down and help us. Psalm 18 counters that with a multitude of metaphors of God’s power and care. Its diverse symbols are one reason I keep going back to it to be reminded that nothing is too hard for God. At one of the lowest times of my life, these verses burned into my spirit:

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights….

You broaden the path beneath me so that my ankles do not turn. (vv. 32-33, 36)

In 1980, two years after both my parents died, I was finishing up a master’s degree at a respected college 2,000 miles from my roots. It had a reputation of placing graduates in Christian publishing, and that was my goal.  I’d saved money for years so I could attend without student loans, and I would graduate without debt. Despite lots of job inquiries, however, I was still jobless just a week before I had to vacate college housing with no place to go and little left for living expenses. I had no car--just my typewriter, books, bedding and clothes. With my parents deceased, going “home” wasn’t an option.

I felt like I was stumbling down a boulder-strewn path, spraining my ankles at every turn. Yet I wanted to claim the image of sure-footedness in this psalm:

With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. (v. 20)

The impossible “dream job” offer came just days before I would have been homeless. Another employee provided temporary housing (a mattress on the floor of her bedroom) until I got my feet on the ground.  God-things.

Psalm 18 is for rocky times. It opens with images of strength and military might that involve strong places of protection:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.  He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (v. 2)

 It’s also a reminder of the unfathomable love of God:

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (v. 19)

No matter the challenge, Psalm 18 pulses with hope. It nourishes the weary and wary with the rock-solid truth that God can give us the strength to face our problems. “The Lord lives!  Praise be to my rock! Exalted be God my Savior!” (v. 46).